Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust – We Know #ObamaCare ‘s A Bust

50,001? We must have been the 50,001th wannabee victim. In our courageous zeal to inform our readers we ventured into the swamp of ObamaCare. We got stuck immediately. ObamaCare is a pitiless pit of poop.

After a glowing news conference yesterday citing “night and day” progress on HealthCare.gov, I decided to log in this morning and take the Web site for a test drive, as I’m sure many others are doing. Early reports had been promising. What I found was hardly encouraging — long delays loading pages, an endless circle of tasks (some already completed) and ultimately an error message.

The load-time issues (sometimes more than a minute) reminded me of the problems users encountered in the very first days of the Web site, which handles health insurance enrollment for residents of 36 states. It also appears to contradict what Health and Human Services officials said had been fixed. [snip]

Additionally, once I had completed and submitted my application and verified my identity, the site told me that I was missing information and had to review it again. Nothing was missing. Ultimately, I got an error message telling me to come back later.

The Obama administration says the site can now handle 50,000 unique visitors at one time and 800,000 over the course of a day. But on Day One of the new-and-improved site, it doesn’t appear able to keep up with the load. No wonder HHS is encouraging users to come back at off-peak hours.

Some screen shots of my experience are below.

Immediately I encountered delays:

Screenshot by screenshot the Pulitzer winner encountered the same scourging we did. The technicians willing to “chat” could not help him either. We wept as we realized today is the second day of the second month and the second deadline as the hapless ObamaCare website continues to trap the unwary and the misbegotten. Sad, sad, sad. Our crocodile tears flowed.

Amazon, remember Amazon? Amazon, which Barack Obama assured Americans for years was exactly how ObamaCare’s website would work, was busy on CyberMonday processing millions upon millions of orders for customers (over a million per hour; Fedex handled more than 22 million packages). Yesterday Amazon pitched a possible future (we suspect a very clever Christmastide publicity stunt) in which Amazon packages would arrive less than 1 hour after purchase – via drones. ObamaCare? While Amazon worked towards an effective future, Obama shill David Soufflé promised a better ObamaCare future starting in — 2017.

Hold your breath until 2017. If the flatline economy doesn’t kill you ObamaCare will. Fortunately there are two elections coming before 2016 that will kill ObamaCare before it kills us. What will Obama Dimocrats so?

Former administration officials and Democratic operatives say President Obama is ill-served by his current White House staff and must reboot his second term team following the disastrous ObamaCare rollout.

First-term insiders argue the White House’s weakness was defined by a lack of preparedness, messaging blunders and failure to keep the president informed.

They say Obama’s team lacks depth after the departures of longtime advisers David Axelrod, David Plouffe, Robert Gibbs and Patrick Gaspard, and suggest new people must be brought on.

“You basically have [White House senior adviser Dan] Pfeiffer and [deputy chief of staff] Rob Nabors running the show politically, and that’s it,” one former administration official said.”

The problem is not Dan Pfluffer nor David Soufflé. The problem is Barack Obama and his wholly-owned by Obama Dimocrats health scam called ObamaCare. To think that a change of staff will bring back the ObamaCare scam to life is like thinking changing curtains at the morgue will resurrect the frozen dead. Besides, those Barack Obama former staffers like Robert Gibbs, are not exactly being helpful:

“Well, look, I think, you know, the notion that it works for a vast majority of users, obviously, is as many have pointed out an arbitrary measure. We don’t know the exact number. It is clear from reporting that people are having a better user experience,” said Gibbs.

“Again, I think the pressure now will be on the administration to be more forthcoming about what’s happening on the back-end and whether insurance companies are getting the information.”

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd has shilled so much for Obama and ObamaCare he qualifies as an Obama staffer. Chuck is not being helpful either as he sinks not only ObamaCare but the idea of government intervention- at NBC’s flagship Obama protection show!:

CHUCK TODD: David, the most interesting thing in this report, right, page one– it’s page three of the report, it says here that, “The team is operating with private sector velocity and effectiveness.”

DAVID GREGORY: Yeah.

CHUCK TODD: Okay, that is an acknowledgement that, “You know what? If this was a government operation for a long time and it failed, now we’re bringing in the private sector folks.” I mean, that is an indictment on the whole idea of government as a solution, frankly, when you look at [unintelligible].

“While insurers will start covering people who pay their share of the premium, many insurers worry the government will be late on the payments they were expecting in mid-January for the first people covered.

“We want to be paid,” said one executive, speaking frankly on the condition of anonymity. “If we want to pay claims, we need to get paid.”

Insurers said they had received calls from consumers requesting insurance cards because they thought they had enrolled in a health plan through the federal website, but the insurers said they had not been notified.

“Somehow people are getting lost in the process,” the insurance executive said. “If they go to a doctor or a hospital and we have no record of them, that will be very upsetting to consumers.”

Upsetting? Ya think? Wait until applicants find out all the subsidy information they received is a load of poop too and they have to pay more than their meager budgets permit as “affordable”.

“So here’s the outlook for the next eight weeks. Even with the White House urging progressive nonprofits not to drum up extra interest in enrollment before December 23rd in order to keep site traffic manageable, traffic is still bound to soar. The site may well crash, right in the home stretch before the December 23rd deadline. Once December 23rd arrives, insurers will have just eight days to somehow process the last-minute crush of applications without error, even though some unknown portion of them will likely be riddled with data problems from Healthcare.gov. If/when the applications are processed, people will start discovering next month after they’ve made appointments that their insurer has never heard of them. They’ll also find out that that the relatively low-premium ObamaCare “bronze” plan they signed up for happens to come with a deductible that’s stratospherically high and a provider network that’s much smaller than they’d hoped for. And on top of all that, it’s an open question whether the risk pools in the exchanges will be as young and healthy as insurers need them to be or whether they’ll end up too old or sick to be sustainable. In other words — mass chaos. Like I say, this is merely the next eight weeks. How long will Democrats tough it out? [snip]

How much more blood can Democrats lose before they pull the plug? Exit quotation from Obama, the thinking-man’s answer to the notoriously “incurious” George Bush: “We’re evaluating why it is exactly that I didn’t know soon enough that it wasn’t going to work the way it needed to.”

When you’re trapped in a sea of poop, get out of the boat. Run. Get out. Get out now. The rising tide of poop sinks all ships. Get to shore. Get to safety. Get out of the poop. ObamaCare is a pitiless pit of poop.

Around 10 a.m. Monday morning, the Obama administration began using queuing software to meter entry into the HealthCare.gov Web site. At the time, the site had fewer than 40,000 users, somewhere in the “mid-30,000” range, as Medicare spokeswoman Julie Bataille put it.

“As we looked at error rates, that was the team’s determination,” Bataille said.

Most notably, the queuing system went up before HealthCare.gov hit its planned target of handling 50,000 concurrent users. When pressed on this point, Bataille referred to a separate metric that the administration has used to measure success: that 800,000 people be able to use the Web site in a single day.

“The idea is that we said the site would be able to handle 800,000 in the course of a day,” Bataille said. “What we wanted to do today, with the new upgrades and to ensure the most optimal experience, was deploy the queuing system…so that people would have the most optimal experience possible. We are working through this in real time.”

Do you have to enter all your private info. before you get to see what your choices are?

This is just what the American public wants to do during the holidays, sit in front of their computers…waiting and worrying about finding healthcare for themselves and their family. What about people that don’t have a computer???

That’s bad enough but if you are sick, this really sucks. My guess is that millions of people will overfill the emergency rooms, and the sick will be waiting outside in the cold.

By then, if the media does it’s job and reports the long lines…Baracko will have no choice but to beg the insurance companies to recall their Nov/Dec cancellations.

Oh, but Barry will be in Hawaii eating Shave Ice and may not be able to think of those of us back on the mainland until he is finished having a good time.

Shadowfax. Step one was to go to the website. Step two was to click the button which said “apply”. The website stopped there. We got no further. The website, like the Wizard of Oz told us to go away and come back another day.

Shadowfax. Step one was to go to the website. Step two was to click the button which said “apply”. The website stopped there. We got no further. The website, like the Wizard of Oz told us to go away and come back another day.

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Haha admin, I guess I got to the same spot that the site broke down and jumped out before knowing it would crash.

I was actually going to put in some phony name and info to test it, but didn’t want to get any cooties after the ‘apply’ button was clicked.

Well . . . Brit Hume has weighed in on the political impact of Obamacare on the democrat party in the upcoming election.

He notes in passing that according to the polls, 80% of the public was satisfied with their current insurance program BEFORE Obamacare was passed. But now millions are losing their coverage, the website does not work and congressional democrats are wondering whether any of this will affect their future ability to win elections. Consequently, he believes they may have knocked over a hornets nest.

Perhaps. Time will tell. But experience suggests that it is wise to err on the side of caution, in view of the corruption of big media or the ignorance of the sheeple, aka the flat earth society, or the termination of Soros to destroy this country. None of these factors can be discounted.

“It’s really hard to go back and fix the security around it because security wasn’t built into it,” said Kennedy, chief executive of TrustedSec. “We’re talking multiple months to over a year to at least address some of the critical-to-high exposures on the website itself.”

snip

Another online security expert—who spoke at last week’s House hearing and then on CNBC—said the federal Obamacare website needs to be shut down and rebuilt from scratch. Morgan Wright, CEO of Crowd Sourced Investigations said: “There’s not a plan to fix this that meets the sniff test of being reasonable.”

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never watch Morning Joe anymore because it is hard to listen to or watch that self absorbed bunch…but somehow woke up to it this morning…and did hear Joe say one very accurate and descriptive thing…

essentially he compared Ocare to a movie set…where everything looked one way from the front…but actually it was all a facade…and when you looked behind it nothing was there…

all one big facade that is what O and Ocare is…

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things are getting really bad for O when Margaret Carlson and Ron Fournier are nailing O for the disinterested, disengaged fake he is…

if they are actually putting those thoughts in print…one can only imagine the conversations going on behind closed doors by the likes of Al Hunt and the old O lovers gang…

“President Barack Obama will launch a coordinated campaign Tuesday by the White House, congressional Democrats and their outside allies to return attention to why the Affordable Care Act passed in the first place.

After two months of intense coverage of the botched HealthCare.gov rollout, the president will host a White House event kicking off a three-week drive to refocus the public on the law’s benefits, senior administration officials told POLITICO.
(snip)

” But while the contractors were grateful to Mr. Zients for helping to create order, they saw the administration’s “tech surge” — announced by Mr. Obama in the Rose Garden a few days before QSSI took over — as mostly an exercise in public relations.

The announcement conjured images of an army of software engineers descending on the project. In fact, the surge centered on about a half-dozen people who had taken leave from various technology companies to join the effort.(snip)

Talk about a moon floating in de sky looking like a lily on a lake,
Talk about a bird learning how to flyMaking all the music he can make
Happy talk, keep talking’ happy talk,Talk about things you’d like to do,
You gotta have a dream, if you don’t have a dream,How you gonna have a dream come true?

(Historical Note: Dana’s grandfather was present at Kitty Hawk North Carolina when the Wright Brothers launched the first airplane, and Dana Sr. was heard to say, it will never fly. Contrarians listen closely to what the Milbank family says, realize it is invariably wrong, bet against his advice and always win.

Peerce Morgan calls Obama a perfect physical specimen, calls Christie a fat slob and Christie refuses to support a fellow Republican who is running against Cuomo, all of which evokes this apt response from one astute observer:
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It’s already over for Christie Creme, Piers Morgan says he “couldn’t follow the Perfect Physical Specimen of Barack Hussien Obama into the White House”.

1. Creme is a RINO at best

2. Morgan is a limey idiot subversive that needs deported

3. The mom jeans messiah is a perfect specimen all right, the one the doctor takes…

That Daily Beast article is excellent. Gives Reid hell for helping perpetrate a “cynical lie” – that Pubs are against Ocare because of Obama’s race.

You’re right wbb, it will be a cold day in Hell before people forget the role MSM played in getting Obama selected. They certainly had no reluctance to speak loud, long and often, promoting Obama and propping him up. They have to be held accountable for the disservice they have done this country.

It could take a year to secure the risk of “high exposures” of personal information on the federal Obamacare online exchange, a cybersecurity expert told CNBC on Monday.

“When you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn’t appear to have happened this time,” said David Kennedy, a so-called “white hat” hacker who tests online security by breaching websites. He testified on Capitol Hill about the flaws of HealthCare.gov last week.

“It’s really hard to go back and fix the security around it because security wasn’t built into it,” said Kennedy, chief executive of TrustedSec. “We’re talking multiple months to over a year to at least address some of the critical-to-high exposures on the website itself.”

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw the implementation of the website, the components used to build the site are compliant with standards set by Federal security authorities.

“The privacy and security of consumers’ personal information are a top priority for us. Security testing happens on an ongoing basis using industry best practices to appropriately safeguard consumers’ personal information,” said the spokesperson.

Another online security expert—who spoke at last week’s House hearing and then on CNBC—said the federal Obamacare website needs to be shut down and rebuilt from scratch. Morgan Wright, CEO of Crowd Sourced Investigations said: “There’s not a plan to fix this that meets the sniff test of being reasonable.”

(Read more: Fix Obamacare site? ‘Better chance of seeing God’)

Last month, a Sept. 27 government memorandum surfaced in which two HHS officials said the security of the site had not been properly tested before it opened, creating “a high risk.”

HHS had explained then that steps were taken to ease security concerns after the memo was written, and that consumer information was secure. Technicians fixed a security bug in the password reset function in late October, the agency said.

But on CNBC, Kennedy disputed those claims, saying vulnerabilities remain on “everything from hacking someone’s computer so when you visit the website it actually tries to hack your computer back, all the way to being able to extract email addresses, users names—first name, last name—[and] locations.”

This Obamacare website reminds me of those emails you get from african fraudsters…….you know the “I’m A Nigerian prince and i need to get money out of my country, i will contact you by e-mail with your confirmation and an address to send your payments to”.

There are numerous alarming reasons why the US government and the military have been buying up all the ammo. Here’s one of them. Obama and the EPA just shut down the last lead smelting plant in the US. They raised the EPA regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply. You can own all the guns you want, but if you can’t get ammo, you are out of luck.

Remember when Obama promised his minions that he was working on gun control behind the scenes? Welcome to it. Now, all domestic mined lead ore will have to be shipped overseas, refined and then shipped back to the US. Not only will ammo now be even harder to come by, the demand and the process of supply will cause the price to skyrocket even more. And ponder this… there is an excellent chance that Obama will rig the market to where all ammo has to be purchased from a government entity instituting de facto ammo registration. So much for the Second Amendment. There has not been a peep about this in the major news outlets and it is done. With the US no longer producing lead, all supplies will now have to come from China, Australia or Peru, with the overwhelming emphasis on China. More redistribution of wealth; more economic and liberty crippling of the US on tap.

Taxation Without Representation: SCOTUS affirms New York State’s Amazon Tax

If you’re an online retailer, New York State wants to tax you, no matter where you are. And the U.S. Supreme Court says they can.

The US Supreme Court upheld Monday New York state’s law requiring Amazon to collect sales tax on items sold online, the latest decision in a long battle over ecommerce taxes.

The top US court dismissed without comment an appeal from Amazon and online retailer Overstock.com, after the New York state Court of Appeals ruled the tax constitutional in March.

The decision requires Amazon to collect and remit sales taxes for goods sold to residents of New York state, an important battleground over the question of taxes for online sales.

State governments and brick-and-mortar retailers have long argued that online retailers should be required to collect sales taxes, to avoid giving an unfair advantage to ecommerce sites.

Amazon and others have argued that the US constitution bars taxes on interstate commerce, and prior court decisions have held that etailers must collect sales taxes only in states where they have a physical presence.

“The world has changed dramatically in the last two decades, and it may be that the physical presence test is outdated,” the state court opinion said.

It added that “active, in-state solicitation” establishes a presence in the state which requires the collection of sales taxes.

So, what’s a “physical presence?” It used to be a building with your name on it. Now, SCOTUS says it’s anyone who even tangentially works on your behalf. Like say, the mailman. Or a web site viewed in New York that displays your banner ad. Congratulations! Pixels are a “physical presence.” Please make your check payable to Andrew Cuomo.

Sales tax is one of the most convoluted creatures ever conceived. Big guys like Amazon will easily handle all the nuances of every state, county, city, town, school district, and sewer authority’s myriad tax rules. But the little guy trying to eke out a living on eBay? Yeah, he’s toast.

And just wait until New York wants to audit you. They really won’t care if you’re in Idaho either. Taxation without representation, it’s now The Law Of The Land.

What’s that old saying about death and taxes? Because thanks to SCOTUS, taxes are gonna be the death of us.

No security of Privacy Act protected information (it is a federal felony to hand that over to hackers, navigators, and crooked insurance companies) on ObamacareDOTgov and no payment method for premiums because they did not get that far coding it before the launch October 1. You don’t have an insurance contract until the premium is in the hot little hands of the carrier. I guess they thought no one would notice. LOL. I still think they were going to delay it all until Cruz and Lee poked them with a stick with the the very un-filibuster filibuster until Obama went live with it on a double dog dare. I’d like to know if Cruz and Lee had inside information of just had bad it was going to go from some moles.

I will never trust computers and websites and technology, its gone too far.

Last night in the UK, 3 Banks systems did a Healthcare.gov, Royal bank of Scotland, Natwest and Ulster Bank went completely down and everything went to pot, no-one could pay for anything online, ATM’s died….and hardly any people were carrying cash, there were stories of people walking 15 miles to get home.

This Obamacare website reminds me of those emails you get from african fraudsters…….you know the “I’m A Nigerian prince and i need to get money out of my country, i will contact you by e-mail with your confirmation and an address to send your payments to”.
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A distinction without a difference, other than the fact that in this case the fraudster is African-American. Seems strange that big media has not raised that comparison, since they are so keen to promote his race. One that leads them to bury stories about the rising tide of black on white violence.

There was a massive Google scrubbing of some 300,000 articles about Obama cases by Dr. Orly Taitz

In the past several hours there was a massive Google scrubbing of some 300,000 articles about Obama cases

Something made the regime apprehensive. Over 300,000 articles were de-linked from searches on Attorney Orly Taitz. Since it happened today, it is likely due to articles on lack of birth records for Malia and Sasha Obama in the U. S. databases or because of the latest “Obamacare for dummies” by Attoney Taitz, which explained the connection between the Obamacare and WTO-GATT, NAFTA Ponzi schemes, which robbed over a 100 million Americans of good employer paid insurances.

President Barack Obama will launch a coordinated campaign Tuesday by the White House, congressional Democrats and their outside allies to return attention to why the Affordable Care Act passed in the first place.

After two months of intense coverage of the botched HealthCare.gov rollout, the president will host a White House event kicking off a three-week drive to refocus the public on the law’s benefits, senior administration officials told POLITICO.

The White House will take the lead in emphasizing a different benefit each day until the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline for Jan. 1 coverage. The daily message will be amplified through press events and social media by Democratic members of Congress, the Democratic National Committee, congressional campaign committees and advocacy organizations, officials said.

The fresh push is an attempt to get back to the game plan that Democrats wanted to pursue before the faulty website forced them into full-time damage control. The president needs to rebuild confidence in the law among the public and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, who have threatened to roll back aspects of Obamacare if the insurance marketplace didn’t improve quickly — and refocus attention on what would be lost if it were repealed.

Now that the website appears to be mostly functional, the West Wing thinks it has the ability to return to sales mode.

“Healthcare.gov met our self-imposed November 30th deadline and even as we continue to make improvements to the website, we’ll also remind the public about how the Affordable Care Act is already making a positive difference in the lives of millions of Americans today,” said Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman. “The benefits of these consumer protections will only accumulate in the weeks and months ahead.”

Obama won’t declare the website fixed during Tuesday’s event. White House officials acknowledge HealthCare.gov still isn’t working as smoothly as it should, and that this renewed messaging push will run alongside efforts to make further repairs to the insurance marketplace and to target key populations for enrollment.

But he will return to a theme he first pursued in October: Obamacare is more than a website.

“What the White House is doing is what the White House had hoped they would spend the last two months doing, which is going out, selling the law, selling the benefits of the law,” said a former Obama adviser who framed the shift as a sign of White House confidence. “The fact that they feel comfortable doing that is a healthy sign for the president but also for the long-term benefits of Obamacare.”

Republicans aren’t expected back down from their campaign to weaken the law, and officials said they have been preparing for the Democratic offensive.

“Democrats will spend the next year promising to ‘fix’ ObamaCare, but they’ve already lost all credibility with voters,” said Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which has already cut a web ad aimed at vulnerable Democrats that concludes with the message: “They can’t be trusted to keep their promises.”

The focus on Obamacare benefits is a political necessity for congressional Democrats, the large majority of whom will face voters in less than a year. Democrats wrote and passed the law in the face of unified Republican opposition, and if voters aren’t aware of the law’s upside — or can’t remember it amid all the problems with the rollout — Democrats will be holding onto an anchor rather than a buoy.

Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill say that in order to get back on offense on Obamacare, they have to draw a two-sided picture: Democrats delivering benefits on one side, and Republicans trying to deny them on the other. That, one party operative said, is what polling says will help them win. Instead, Democrats have spent the past two months blaming a president of their own party for the deficiencies of a law that they own.

Now, Democratic leaders are welcoming the renewed White House push.

“The consequences of Republican repeal are exactly the case that we need to be making — because Republican repeal would take us backward to a broken system that hurts too many Americans — like forcing millions of seniors to pay $1,200 more for their prescription drugs,” said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “Every poll tells us that when we make that case, voters choose Democrats.”

On Wednesday, the White House and Democratic allies will focus on how Americans are paying less for preventative care under Obamacare. On Thursday, they’ll highlight that people with preexisting conditions can no longer be charged more or denied coverage. And on Friday, they’ll emphasize the slowing growth in health care costs.

”We are able to hit reset on the conversation,” said Lori Lodes, senior vice president of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. “We have to make sure people understand how the law will benefit them.”
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Another Reason They Should Have Read the Bill: The $8 Billion ObamaCare PR Budget

Obviously no one read Section 4002 in the Affordable Care Act, because if they had they would have seen that this little section created a fund to promote Obamacare.Here are the staggering numbers allocated to promote this monstrosity.In 2010 it is $500 million, in 2011, $750 million, 2012, $1 billion, 2013, $1.25 billion, 2014, $1.5 billion and in 2015 and on, $2 billion!

“The Prevention and Public Health Fund will provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs”.If you read between the lines they are saying that this fund will be used to sell the idea of Obamacare in any way that they see fit.

It took a scientific study to figure out that men and women are different? Oh my.
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Brains of men and women are poles apart

Differences in the way the brains of men and women are wired helps to explain why men are better at navigating while women can multitask
It is something that men and women have both long suspected – their brains are wired differently.

New research has confirmed that men’s brains appear to be configured to coordinate actions with their senses.

Women’s brains, however, are set up to have better memories, to find multi-tasking easier and to be better at gauging social situations.

The results seem to help shed light on why men are considered better at things like navigating, parking cars and throwing balls while women are credited with being better at multi-tasking, are more intuitive socially, and tend to remember events like anniversaries.

The study, which analysed the brain structures of nearly 1,000 people, found that mens’ brains tend to have more connections within each side of the brain and tend to run between the back and front.

I knew it was a hardy undertaking, but something I felt obligated to do.

I skyped my son last week and told him I was trying to do this because of all the fuss over the Obamacare rollout. His answer? “What the fuck do you care about that?”

His point, of course, is that I’ve got it made, and so does he; so, just leave it all up to the poor saps who don’t know any better.

I pointed out to him, though, that we’ve still got family and friends in the US and they’re not all rich and healthy. I’m worried they’re going to be hit hard in the pocketbook and still not get quality healthcare when the time comes.

So, what I’ll do now is to call the 22 family and friends I have, most of them living in the NYC area. I want to see how this “pit of poop” is affecting them.

I just don’t trust the media accounts of the problems. The media are as trustworthy as the government: Everything is twisted and then amplified to a deafening din; that’s how they make money. That’s the effect of TV, and radio too.

I’d also like to hear your own account of what’s happening with your insurance plan. The only one here who has reported anything is Wbb, so I assume everyone else is getting along fine.

Although big media and obama are high fiving each other now, and the elites are laughing at the country as they count their ill gotten gains–in other words as life as experienced in the past five years which can be summed up in the simple phrase, a leftist cook book on how to destroy the nation, returns to a state of relative normalcy, there is this little factoid:

The Obamacare Disasters Still to Come!

By Larry Johnson on December 1, 2013 at 1:50 PM in Current Affairs

Watching the Obama crowd struggling to take a victory lap because their healthcare.gov website can handle the traffic that noquarterusa.net does is frigging hysterical. Obama and his team of mental midgets are busy polishing this turd and pushing the story that Healthcare is a smashing success. This self-indulget delusion was on display on the morning news shows. Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen and New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez were spinning like dreidels on crack (for you goyim out there, a dreidel is a top Jewish kids spin at Hannukah.)

Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the website works perfectly. So what? Does that fix “healthcare?” No.

The problems are multiple. A significant minority of Americans are not computer literate or do not have access to a computer or internet. And even if they do, the ability to compare health plans is not like comparing new automobiles. The variables are many and daunting. It is not a simple process. This will remain a stumbling block for all who do not currently have an insurance policy.

Let’s also assume that everyone who is supposed to sign up does so. Does that mean that the healthcare “problem” is solved? That’s the critical issue folks. Obama and media are trying to pretend that fixing healthcare is just a matter of getting people signed up. But it is not a simple problem. For starters, most people who have had good health insurance will find themselves having to pay more. They are not going to be happy.

Then there is the problem of getting to keep their doctor. Most people will be in insurance plans that require them to use certain physicians and hospitals. Their ability to choose is limited. This will stick in the craw of unhappy consumers who will almost certainly take out their frustration on elected officials.

The disruption in the healthcare market is going to be significant, lasting and negative. Many small businesses currently offering coverage will be bailing out. This may be good news for some of the insurance companies, who will pick up new clients that are paying more in premiums. But that means less disposable income and less spending in the economy. That’s not a recipe for job creation or economic growth.

As I noted earlier, you cannot polish shit. Smearing it around does not make it look or smell better. That’s a lesson that the Democrats touting Obamacare don’t seem to understand.

“The problems are multiple. A significant minority of Americans are not computer literate or do not have access to a computer or internet. And even if they do, the ability to compare health plans is not like comparing new automobiles. The variables are many and daunting. It is not a simple process. This will remain a stumbling block for all who do not currently have an insurance policy.”
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Crony capitalism at its worst. Obama and the insurance industry conspire to bleed the middle class with LOUSY Obamacare which they neither need, want or can afford , and when the joint venture turns unprofitable for the insurance companies Obama is there to bail them out, thus ensuring that big business gets the profits on the upside, and taxpayers get the losses on the downside. Same crap as we saw with the bank crash of 2008 caused by their improvident lending practices. It is always this way with crony capitalism. Why then does big media cover it up? The answer lies in who owns them, i.e. big business. Why do the American People pay any attention to them? Because they are fools.
———————http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/us/politics/insurers-are-offered-assistance-for-losses.html?_r=1&amp;

Reading some of the tweets and columns of Greg Sargeant…..the guy may as well lay on his back and be screwed like a hooker by Obama, he is the worst kind of presstitute and frankly, he does not come across that intelligent either but he’s an even worse fellator than Ezra Klein and that really is a feat to achieve.

“when the joint venture turns unprofitable for the insurance companies Obama is there to bail them out..”
****
It’s interesting that the Obamacare law essentially removes underwriting from “healthcare insurance” except for the insurance company profits which are underwritten by “risk corridors”.

President Obama and his clueless foreign policy crew apparently banked on Israel, the Sunni Arab states, the American people and the foreign policy establishment not realizing he was on the verge of giving Iran’s illegal enrichment program the good housekeeping seal of approval. Unfortunately for him, all of those voices are far too savvy and the stakes far too high to provide him with a cocoon of silence. Congress is in bipartisan revolt over the interim deal and now come two eminences of the foreign policy community who can’t be passed off as wild-eyed conservative partisans.
President Obama speaks by telephone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.(Pete Souza for the White House via Agence France-Press)

Henry Kissinger and George P. Shultz, two of the most widely known secretaries of state (the architect of détente and the architect of non-détente) take to the Wall Street Journal to, in essence, deplore the interim deal. They describe the problem:

The interim nuclear deal with Iran has been described as the first step toward the elimination of Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. That hope resides, if at all, in the prospects of the next round of negotiations envisaged to produce a final outcome within six months. Standing by itself, the interim agreement leaves Iran, hopefully only temporarily, in the position of a nuclear threshold power—a country that can achieve a military nuclear capability within months of its choosing to do so. A final agreement leaving this threshold capacity unimpaired would institutionalize the Iranian nuclear threat, with profound consequences for global nonproliferation policy and the stability of the Middle East. . . .

The heart of the problem is Iran’s construction of a massive nuclear infrastructure and stockpile of enriched uranium far out of proportion to any plausible civilian energy-production rationale. Iran amassed the majority of this capacity—including 19,000 centrifuges, more than seven tons of 3.5%- to 5%-enriched uranium, a smaller stock (about 196 kilograms) of 20%-enriched uranium, and a partly built heavy-water reactor that will be capable of producing plutonium—in direct violation of IAEA and Security Council resolutions.

After reviewing the decades of failed efforts to negotiate with Iran and more recently to lure them away from their nuclear weapons program they argue:

Until now, the U.N. resolutions and IAEA directives have demanded an immediate halt to all activities related to uranium enrichment and plutonium production, and unconditional compliance with an IAEA inspections regime as a matter of right. Under the interim agreement, Iranian conduct that was previously condemned as illegal and illegitimate has effectively been recognized as a baseline, including an acceptance of Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium (to 5%) during the agreement period. And that baseline program is of strategic significance. For Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium is coupled with an infrastructure sufficient to enrich it within a few months to weapons-grade, as well as a plausible route to producing weapons-grade plutonium in the installation now being built at Arak. Not surprisingly, the Iranian negotiator, upon his return to Tehran, described the agreement as giving Iran its long-claimed right to enrich and, in effect, eliminating the American threat of using force as a last resort.

Insurance companies are still waiting for key parts of HealthCare.gov to be built—and still having trouble with the parts that are in place.

Important pieces of the Obamacare site are still glitchy, or missing altogether. And the site’s botched rollout is hardly boosting confidence in the vital components that still need to be built, including the systems for processing payments to insurers and squaring away the details of who has enrolled in which plans.

Both systems are crucial to the insurance industry, which needs to collect premiums so it can pay out claims. And carriers are still waiting for the delayed process of reconciling their enrollment information with the federal government’s data. As the rest of HealthCare.gov struggles to get off the ground, people in and near the insurance industry are nervous about the delays and about how well those systems will work once they’re in place.

“They don’t have a very good track record of building and testing systems, given what we’ve seen so far, so that is cause for concern,” an industry official said.

Not surprisingly, the Iranian negotiator, upon his return to Tehran, described the agreement as giving Iran its long-claimed right to enrich and, in effect, eliminating the American threat of using force as a last resort.
—————————
Cool.

Yup. That’s Obama. Real cool.

Peace will soon guide the planets.

All in a days work for our big media beloved messiah.

Who cares if he gave the store away?

Just those uptight people who value patriotism.

He is cool. Cool!!!

Only a racist would disagree.

That is your que big media.

Lay it on thick.

Criticism of the Messiah is no way to treat our first black president.

Since he came into office the five counties surrounding Washington have become the richest in the country.

A combination of IRS rules and Obamacare mandates could result in the elimination of volunteer fire departments across the country, according to Rep. Lou Barletta.

Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, thinks that current policy requires companies to provide insurance to volunteer firefighters. “Forcing volunteer fire companies to comply with the Shared Responsibility Provision will not extend health insurance to the uninsured — rather, it will close firehouses and put communities at risk,” he wrote in a letter to IRS Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel.

“Furthermore, subjecting volunteer fire companies to the Shared Responsibility Provision may force them to eliminate volunteers in order to avoid classification as a large employer,” he also wrote.

Barletta told Werfel that the issue was raised to him by constituents. Barletta’s press release explained that “currently the IRS treats all firefighters, volunteer or paid, as employees for federal tax purposes.” Obamacare requires that companies with more than 50 employees must provide insurance.

“If incorrectly implemented, volunteer fire departments may be unintentionally forced to comply with requirements that could force them to close or curtail their emergency response activities,” William Metcalf, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, said in a press release accompanying Barletta’s letter.

The Hollywood Reporter writes that Lionsgate is in early talks on the project and has tapped director James Ponsoldt for the project.

From its report:

The script, which was on the 2012 Black List, portrays Rodham as a young lawyer on the committee involved in President Richard Nixon’s impeachment, as well as shows her juggling a diverging career path with her unresolved feelings for future president Bill Clinton.

No actress is currently attached, although Ponsoldt met with Carey Mulligan, among others, earlier in the summer. Other Hillary Clinton projects fell through this summer: NBC scrapped its miniseries project, while CNN canceled its documentary.

Sources caution that talks with Lionsgate are early in nature and may not work out.

NBC and CNN canceled their projects in September amid pressure from both Republicans and Clinton loyalists.

The way this Website thing is going, i have a feeling, Obama, michelle, Kathleen and Sasha and Malia are the ones in a dingy backroom, putting this website together with sticky plasters and sellotape, it just smacks of something a 2 bit call center would work on, or an in house small hotel software kit made up on the hop to handle 20 rooms.

I’d also like to hear your own account of what’s happening with your insurance plan. The only one here who has reported anything is Wbb, so I assume everyone else is getting along fine.

——
I can only account for folks I know here in CA.

The folks that have Kaiser, or a similar plan, seem to be able to keep their plan. Rates always go up, but very slowly, normally. There is a more expensive version of Kaiser health plan, I have no idea how that is effecting folks.

Most people think of Kaiser as the ‘cheapest’ plan, but my employer pays a good penny for it, and I have small payments. I am limited to their facilities and doctors and their rules.

The people that are complaining most, are those that have had their policy canceled because of HellCare They are seeing their alternative choices will be a lot more expensive than before.

I have no idea if any of the uninsured are being covered by ObamaCare since these people often have no job, are in serious economic distress and often have no computer to sign up on, or young people that are still dreaming that their boy is going to give them free healthcare and are going to be in total shock when the IRA grabs some of their tax return as a penalty.

Bill Clinton says he doesn’t know if his wife will run for the White House in 2016, but he says it too early for the next presidential race to start.

Asked in an interview Tuesday with CNN Español correspondent Juan Carlos López if he thinks Hillary Clinton will make another White House bid, the former President said “I don’t know.”

“I think, and she believes, that the country should spend at least another year working very hard on the problems we have,” he continued. “We have very serious challenges in America, and we have responsibilities around the world. I think it’s a big mistake, this constant four-year, peripatetic campaign is not good for America. We need to deal with the business we have before us.”

While the next race for the White House doesn’t really get underway for another year, until after the 2014 midterm elections, some of the early moves are already underway, with some of the potential presidential contenders making visits to the early primary and caucus states. And speculation is rampant over whether Hillary Clinton will run again. All polling indicates that if she does launch a campaign, Clinton would instantly become the overwhelming frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.

Former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday defended his controversial comments in which he said early last month that President Barack Obama “should honor” his promise to Americans that if they liked their health insurance plans, they’d be able to keep them under the Affordable Care Act.

“I was trying to be supportive of it,” Clinton said, referring to the law better known as Obamacare in an interview with CNN Español Correspondent Juan Carlos López

“I don’t think you can find anybody in America who has worked harder for (Obama’s) re-election or supported this bill or went out of his way to explain the bill to the American people more than I did,” Clinton continued.

When selling the health care bill and then running for re-election, Obama told Americans that they could keep their health insurance plans if they liked them. However, he didn’t make clear that that rule only applied to plans purchased before the bill became law in 2010.

After millions of people began receiving cancellation notices because of Obamacare regulations, the President apologized in an interview on November 7, pledging his administration would find a way to fix it.

Less than a week later, Clinton made a comment that many interpreted as criticism of Obama’s handling of the situation.

“I personally believe, even if it takes a change in the law, the President should honor the commitment the federal government made to those people and let them keep what they’ve got,” the former President said during an interview with the website OZY.com.

Clinton did, however, spend much of the interview defending the 2010 health care overhaul.

Some speculated Clinton made those comments to help distance his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, from the Obama administration as she possibly prepares for a presidential run.

Asked Tuesday by López if politics was involved in his comments, the former President forcefully said “no.”

Defending his remarks, he said he only spoke about the topic once “the President himself spoke.”

“And it was obvious to me, listening to him, that he wanted the American people to feel that he had kept his commitment, and that they didn’t understand that he, in fact, did grandfather in–that is, protect–all the policies that were in existence on the day he signed the health care bill. That was done,” he said.

“But he didn’t take over the insurance industry in America. So, for example today, less than 20% of those 11 million policies which exist in the individual insurance market even existed when President Obama signed the bill,” he added.

Clinton was a big figure in Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, serving as a prime time speaker at the Democratic National Convention, and defending the health care law both before and after Obama started his second term.

I spoke to my insurance company today and I may get grandfathered in as my renewal is not until mid next year. However, the rate increase could be so prohibitive that I will have to go into the individual market. That, ultimately, is the goal of the ACA. I love my plan and if I go into the individual market I will be most likely be out of network for my doctors. Thus, I will have to reach the out of pocket maximum before coverage would kick in. I can afford that, but most people can’t. Thus, people will have to use doctors and facilities they may not wish to.

“Thus, I will have to reach the out of pocket maximum before coverage would kick in.”
*****
IIRC, ACA exchange policies have 0% coverage for out of network services. My previous, large employer provided insurance coverage paid very little on out of network, unless for emergency then paid 60%. The question that I haven’t found an answer for is does the out of pocket limit also apply to out of network charges.

Expert Testifies to Congress that Obama’s ‘Ignoring Laws’ Could Lead to Overthrow of Government

During a congressional committee hearing about the constitutional limits imposed on the presidency and the implications of President Barack Obama’s disregard for implementing the Affordable Care Act as written, one expert testified that the consequences of the president’s behavior were potentially grave. He said that the precedent set by Obama could eventually lead to an armed revolt against the federal government.

On Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies, testified before a congressional committee about the dangers of the president’s legal behavior.

“There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government,” Cannon said. “Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

“That is a very dangerous sort of thing for the president to do, to wantonly ignore the laws,” Cannon concluded, “to try to impose obligation upon people that the legislature did not approve.”

jbstonesfan
December 3, 2013 at 3:20 pm
————-
I remember your trip to the Cleveland Clinic a few years ago, which many of us on this blog were concerned about and were relieved when you got a satisfactory bill of health.

If this had occurred under Obamacare, I worry that such services would not be available, or would be cost prohibitive.

President Obama’s Kenyan-born uncle, once ordered deported, granted permission to stay in US
———
I think that is only prudent. Suppose Obama was impeached or decided to devote himself to golf full time. To whom would we turn to then? Biden? Boehner? Reid? Kerry? That is the order of succession. And that is very dreadful.

Now that Obama’s illegal alien uncle has been granted permission to stay, and will be further enhanced by amnesty which McConnell is secretly pursuing, I think that is a good thing. After all, with that great gene pool of the Obama clan, he would make as great a president as the Great Barack, meaning his has the same aptitude for fundraising, i.e. stealing, and the same aversion to work. Lazy fuck. Hey hey hey. You must not speak of the president that way. Fore!!!!

Put aside the question of whether or not immigration reform is already dead, at least until after the next elections. Left unspoken in Plouffe’s assessment is the more fundamental question of whether the rollout of Obamacare has done irreparable damage to the prospects for any immigration reform proposal.

Since the administration has badly mismanaged the creation of a giant new government program, one based in no small part on technology, then why should lawmakers rush to approve another giant new government program, one based in no small part on technology? That is the question Obamacare has created.

All immigration measures, from the Gang of Eight bill passed by the Senate to the piecemeal measures languishing in the House, rely on strengthening enforcement, both at the border and in the workplace. And much of that is based on technology.

The Gang of Eight scheme provides for all sorts of high-tech measures to be put in place along the southern border. It spells out in excruciating detail the number of motion sensors, drones, cameras and other devices to be employed.

Probably more significant, from a technology perspective, is immigration reform’s reliance on a massive new information program based on the E-Verify system. The project would connect every employer in the country with a central database to check whether prospective employees are in the country legally.

The Gang of Eight proposal also requires background checks, relying on other centralized databases, for the estimated 12 million people now in the United States illegally. And then there is what is known as “entry-exit.” That is a nationwide high-tech system to track every person who enters the United States on a temporary visa, recording when that person arrives and leaves.

All involve creating big high-tech systems, and all have been troubled in the past. Some of the border measures have already been proven ineffective, and others have never been tested in a real-world situation. Conducting background checks on current immigrants has overwhelmed today’s capabilities. Critics have attacked E-Verify, citing error rates and enforcement difficulties. And the federal government has tried and failed for more than a decade to install an entry-exit system.

Now, the administration’s bungling of the Obamacare rollout has lowered the public’s faith in both the president and government to handle a major new initiative. That, in turn, will have an effect on lawmakers pushing immigration reform.

The effect might be greatest on Republicans who have been slamming the administration over Obamacare, yet are still open to some sort of immigration deal. “Our conference has some who have stated that we must ‘solve’ the immigration problem and ‘fix’ our immigration system ‘once and for all,’ ” says one House GOP lawmaker who opposes Gang of Eight-style reform. “It’s hard to say government cannot run a health care website on the one hand, and then turn around in the same breath and say government will be able to implement a 1,200-page bill that is in many ways more complex than even Obamacare.”

Beyond the question of government competence is the issue of good faith. The Obama administration desperately wants Obamacare to work, and still messed up the job. Is it reasonable to expect it will effectively implement high-tech immigration enforcement measures that it opposes?

“Democrats are dismayed by the Obamacare glitches, but won’t really mind the immigration glitches since they involve systems they don’t really support in any case,” says Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, which also opposes the Gang of Eight bill. Given that, it could be hard for Republican reform supporters to stay the course.

Immigration reform had plenty of problems before the Obamacare rollout. Now it has more.

Obama WH won’t let media photojournalists take pics of him. WH staffers take the pics and allow MSM to use them.

Dana Milbanks expresses surprise and a tiny bit of criticism.

__________

DANA MILBANK
Is the Obama White House airbrushing history?

It was a hallmark of the Stalin era: Fallen Soviet leaders vanished from official photographs. Nobody accuses President Barack Obama of such subterfuge (well, nobody except for those who believe he forged his birth certificate), but a change in longtime practice in the White House has raised questions about the integrity of images Americans see of their president.

The White House has increasingly excluded news photographers from Obama’s official events and is instead releasing images taken by in-house photographers, who are government employees. These photos often appear online and in newspapers, even though they lack the same standards of authenticity that govern those taken by photojournalists.

“As surely as if they were placing a hand over a journalist’s camera lens, officials in this administration are blocking the public from having an independent view of important functions of the executive branch of government,” the White House Correspondents’ Association, joined by the Associated Press and other news organizations, wrote in a letter to White House press secretary Jay Carney last week. “You are, in effect, replacing independent photojournalism with visual press releases.”

New York Times photographer Doug Mills likens the administration’s actions to Tass, the Soviet Union’s news agency.
Here are some of the big moments at which the White House replaced independent eyeballs with in-house eyeballs: The president and first lady waving to a sea of people, with the Washington Monument in the background, on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s march; Obama swimming with one of his daughters in the Gulf of Mexico to show that the water is clean; Obama embracing one of his daughters in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell; the president touring the West Bank church on the spot where Jesus is thought to have been born (news photographers were allowed to shoot images when George W. Bush toured that location); Obama alone on the Rosa Parks bus, sitting in the same row where the civil rights icon sat; Obama shaking hands on Veterans Day with the oldest living World War II veteran; Obama shaking hands with Mitt Romney in the Oval Office; the first lady and the president greeting kids the day White House tours resumed this month.

In the past few months, the White House has substituted in-house photography for independent images of Obama meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the co-chairs of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, Hillary Clinton, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, African American faith leaders, Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Pakistani human rights activist Malala Yousafzai.
You don’t have to alter photographs to make them misleading. Releasing photos selected to show the president in the most flattering way can also create a less-than-honest portrait of history. These often go out on the White House’s Flickr account and are picked up for free and repackaged by disreputable news services and published by unsuspecting media outlets. News photographers are angry because it threatens their livelihood. We all should be concerned that it smacks of propaganda.

“To exclude the press from these functions is a major break from how previous administrations have worked with the press,” the correspondents’ association protested.

I doubt the Obama White House is heavily doctoring photos. But there are birther types out there accusing the White House of superimposing Obama into places where he wasn’t. Why give them ammunition?

Thank you wbboei for remembering. That is exactly the problem many will have. I was diagnosed with “Pelvic Floor Dysfunction” and it has remained despite several different approaches. I just turned 51 and since I have great insurance for now, I have already had my PSA test, going in next month for colonoscopy, and will have stress test. One of the treatments is at a facility in Long Island using trigger point injections. I am going to try to do this all before my renewal mid next year as I am not at all confident that I will have the luxury of these treatments under a new plan. Keep in mind I already psy $1900 a month for my group policy which only consists of me through my PA.

“3 Times As Many Americans Supported King George During the Revolutionary War than Support Our OWN Congress Today”

December 2, 2013

Source: Washington’s Blog

“Congress Is Less Popular than Zombies, Witches, Dog Poop, Potholes, Toenail Fungus, Hemorrhoids, Cockroaches, Lice, Root Canals, Colonoscopies, Traffic Jams, Used Car Salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, North Korea, BP during the Gulf Oil Spill, Nixon During Watergate or King George During the American Revolution﻿

When Congress’ approval rating was in the double-digits, polls showed that it was less popular among the American public than cockroaches, lice, root canals, colonoscopies, traffic jams, used car salesmen, Genghis Khan, Communism, North Korea, BP during the Gulf Oil Spill, Nixon during Watergate or King George during the American Revolution.

An October poll by Public Policy Polling showed that Congress is less popular among the American people than zombies, witches, dog poop, potholes, toenail fungus and hemorrhoids. That was when Congress’ approval rating was 8%.

A new Economist/YouGov.com poll shows that Congress has hit an all-time low: only 6% of the American public approves of Congress.

To put this in perspective, Wikipedia notes:

Historians have estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of the European-American population of the colonies were Loyalists.

In other words, around 3 times as many colonists supported King George as the 6% which support our own Congress today.

Moreover, a May 2013 poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University found that 29% of registered voters think that armed revolution may be “necessary” in the next couple of years. In other words, the number of Americans who think that armed revolution may be “needed” dwarf the number of Americans who approve of the job that Congress is doing.

Even back in 2010, Rasmussen noted that only a small minority of the American people think that the government has the consent of the governed, and that the sentiment was “pre-revolutionary”.”

Ladies and gentlemen…I present the great “yada yada” debate. See if you can actually hear ANYTHING either one of these two idiots are actually saying. This isn’t a blah debate, it is a blah blah blah debate.

Followup to VotingHillary December 3, 2013 at 11:34 pm clip from House Justice Committee hearing today. CSPAN has just replayed that hearing, and I caught the last half hour. Quite compelling, so I reached for pen and paper to take notes. Jonathan Turley was there and excellent. The Repub members were asking on what authority could POTUS possibly justify what he does and does each of these rise to the level of impeachment.

I believe the meeting with Chairman Goodlatte lasted 3 1/2 hours with Democrats exiting shortly after the meetings’ start. HOWEVER, a heavy-handed Democrat named Cohen rushed in toward the end to interrogate; seems he was watching on TV and was upset at how the thing was trending. So he was present for the last bit and projected this attitude: You’re not suggesting that Obama has done anything impeachable are you? He pressed the issue and wilted the Repubs a bit, but they kind of came back.

Hopefully there will be other good clips taken from that hearing. Hurray on them!

(I’ve lucked out.) After a long dry spell in the postcard “publishing” effort, one came together in my mind around noon yesterday. It winds through Obama’s progression of ‘opinions’ regarding the tea parties, all from 2010 where in March he told Matt Lauer that group appeared to have birthers at its core; but ends that thought by conceding that some of the folk have legitimate concerns. 🙂 By April when the Tax Day protests abounded, POTUS stated he found them amusing. 6 months later however, they’d become a danger to democracy. [And went downhill from there lol.]

So the post card winds quickly thru his transition from acceptance to condemnation, and concludes as such: ‘we of the middle class know he does not need you either.’

I’m delighted to realize that the House is already quite far along in a simulataneous thought progression, so perhaps the card will be a catalyst.

I’ve no idea how much influence the post cards have, but take some heart in having 6 Republicans responding positively to my messages – one even said flat out “I agree with you!” … and to date there are two Democrats just recently employing the old Pelosi line: I’ve referred you to your House Represenatative who is Blah blah and his phone number is blah blah. Longstanding House courtesy requires that Representatives’s casework is limited to constituents in their own district.

LIKE I’d asked them to open a case on something. Must admit I’m enjoying that I annoy them. Higgins of NY and Huffman of CA. They’re staying on the list but only to one of their home offices. No only are they gone from DC, but Obama could execute an order prohibiting the Hill mail rooms from delivering my stuff.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Some time ago one of the Repub organizations used the offer of “Error 4O4” stickers as a fund raiser. They arrived recently, and WX yesterday was relatively warm, very dry, so that sticker has been applied to vehicle’s back window. Of course it has the Obama flag icon in the Oh.

Of all the stickers I’ve had on that car, this is probably the one that will get my window broken.

Oh please! This is not a place to worry about hurting someone’s feelings. Hell with political correctness. This could endanger people’s lives!
=====

Should homosexual men – a group with the highest HIV-infection rates in the nation – be allowed to donate blood?

That’s the question the federal government is considering this week as it re-evaluates whether it should lift the 30-year ban on homosexual blood donation.

On Thursday, members of the Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability will revisit the issue.

But a leading pathologist is warning that the move would heighten the risk of spreading HIV to other Americans.

‘Gay’ men have ‘much higher prevalence’ of HIV

Dr. Jay Brooks, an expert in blood banking and transfusion at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, told WND the problem with “donations from men who’ve had sex with men is that they have a much higher prevalence of HIV than the heterosexual community.”

“They have a much higher prevalence,” he emphasized.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, released a 2010 analysis of heavily affected populations showing “men who have sex with men,” or MSM, account for a large majority of new HIV infections, much more so than even injection drug users, or IDUs:

Serendipitous Irony – Obama Says He Will Never Allow Repeal/Replacement of Obamacare on Same Date Rasmussen Poll Shows 81% Of Americans Want Repeal/Replacement….

Talk about being on the wrong side of the American People…. Sheeesh, it’s no wonder there was no public audience today for President Obama’s Pro-ObamaCare speech. Watch the video below for President Obama’s position and assertions. The claps you hear are from the White House staff.

”we’re not going back.” -PERIOD- “If you’ve got good ideas, bring them to me, let’s go.” -PERIOD- “But we’re not repealing it as long as I’m president.” -PERIOD- (link)

Then contrast his position with a Rasmussen Poll released at the exact same time. D’oh.

What in hell makes them think there’s going to be a “last minute crush of applications” two days before Christmas? That’s when people are either out of money or frantically doing their last-minute shopping. The last thing either group is going to be doing is sitting for hours and hours trying to use a broken insurance web site. They are delusional. There will be no “last minute crush of applications”, and there won’t be a “last minute crush” around March 31st either, because that’s when people do their income taxes. Either they owe money, which means they can’t afford an insurance payment, or they are owed a refund, which means they don’t have the money yet.

Mark my words, when April 1st comes around, there will be millions more uninsured Americans than before this month’s cancellation massacre.

Another angle of preezy’s campaign stop yesterday:
snip There were 18 other people standing with Weeks and the president on stage. Obama began his remarks by saying, “Thanks to Monica, thanks to everybody standing behind me.” A little later, criticizing Republicans who have pronounced Obamacare a failure, the president said, “I would advise them to check with the people who are here today and the people that they represent all across the country whose lives have been changed for the better by the Affordable Care Act.”
But Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies. A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information. A pool report called the group “19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform.” Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.Sniphttp://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2540122

This is rich /sarc. Short, so the whole thing is here:
Biden urges Chinese youth to challenge authority
12/4/13.
EIJING (AP) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is opening a visit to China by urging Chinese students to challenge their government, teachers and religious leaders.
Just after arriving in Beijing, Biden paid a surprise visit to the consular section of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where Chinese citizens were waiting to get visas to visit the U.S. Biden says the U.S. is able to remake itself because Americans reject orthodoxy. He says the only way you make something new is to break the mold of what’s old. Biden says American children are rewarded instead of punished for challenging the status quo. His comments seem to allude to the authoritarian rule of China’s government. Biden says he hopes Chinese visiting the U.S. will learn innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-12-04/biden-urges-chinese-youth-to-challenge-authority

HIV infection is so prevalent in so many different sectors that any blood donated should be tested, who is to say should and should not donate……all blood donations should be tested, end off, not just singled out.

Black men and women are also a significant high rate of infection, do you wanna ban them too?

“But Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies. A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information. A pool report called the group “19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform.” Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.”Snip
*****

Wow! 19 people who were probably paid for their positive stories about Ocare. To use the rationale of the WH, when dismissing the importance of the many reports of policies cancelled (sometimes for critically ill patients), coverage lost, premiums increasing 3 x previous amount: OK, so a few people are having problems, we have to look at the big picture – ignore these sad cases. Or as Sebellius said: “People die”.

If it was no big deal when thousands were reporting major problems caused by Ocare, don’t trot out 19 people for whom it was positive, and expect to be rewarded with a smiley face sticker.

Obama Says He Will Never Allow Repeal/Replacement of Obamacare
—————–
Never? Well . . . never is a long time. Asshole. Frankly, the fate of Obamacare depends more on the results of the power struggle which is taking place in the other party–a struggle between the RINO who serves special interests like the insurance companies, and the grass roots who believe the primary duty of a politician runs to those who elected him, as opposed to those who slip money in his back pocket to violate the interests of those who elected him. On the other hand, if it turns out that the insurance companies do not like Obamacare, and cannot bend over politicians like Obama to subsidize their losses, then there remains the possibility of real hope and change, via the repeal route..

“But Obama never said who those people were, and, unlike other events, the White House did not release their names or biographies. A spokesman later said the White House would not provide the information. A pool report called the group “19 individuals whom the White House said benefited from health care reform.” Beyond that, their connection to Obamacare remains unknown.”Snip
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When a document or a witness is offered in a court of law, the proponent of the evidence must lay a foundation for its admissibility in the course of his examination and if there are a question as to whether it is valid at all, then there is a procedure which allows the other party to cross examine it before it is even entered.

Obama’s refusal to release any information about these individuals warrants a strong inference that it is rigged testimony, part of the stagecraft as opposed to substance, which characterizes this man and those who report to him. Raping the public and making them like it is what he and his minions are all about.

Warren simply promotes socialist programs without using the term, and would push the nation to the Left and potential bankruptcy and collapse. Old strategists like Al From, in his new book, are trying to resurrect the old centrist coalition BEFORE ITS TOO LATE, but the chances for success look slim.

What does all of this mean? If they don’t blow it with their own volatile extremists, the Republicans are on the verge of potential major victories in the coming congressional elections.

What does all of this mean? If they don’t blow it with their own volatile extremists, the Republicans are on the verge of potential major victories in the coming congressional elections.
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I have no idea what this jerk means by “blow it”. If the grass roots refuses to vote for a RINO like McConnell, is that an example of blowing it. Because that is what is going to happen. And there is NOTHING extremist about that. A politician either supports the American People or he does not. The question is binary. And if the answer is not, then it is too much effort to vote. It is not worth it. It is fundamentally a choice between a quick death and a death by a thousand cuts.

Truly bad ideas never really die. They merely go into hibernation until the useful idiots can be found to flog them again. So it is with the idea of universal military service. (snip)

Not only is conscription unnecessary but the costs associated with placing a couple of million eighteen year olds on the public dole each year for no greater reason that to show that you can far exceeds the imaginary benefits of conscription.

But it takes Dana Milbank, the Washington Post’s one-man Fifth Column, to bring the stupid to any argument:

At this time of Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the U.S. military — not just for the usual reason that it protects us from our foes but also because it has the potential to save us from ourselves.

As I make my rounds each day in the capital, chronicling our leaders’ plentiful foibles, failings, screw-ups, inanities, outrages and overall dysfunction, I’m often asked if there’s anything that could clean up the mess.

[…]

But one change, over time, could reverse the problems that have built up over the past few decades: We should mandate military service for all Americans, men and women alike, when they turn 18. The idea is radical, unlikely and impractical — but it just might work.

The dishonesty of Milbank is exposed here along with the real agenda. Not everyone who enters the armed forces is going to be in a combat unit. I was fortunate to serve as an airborne infantryman. But I was also grateful when food, ammunition, fuel, mail, and medical care were available. So while on the one hand he derides George Bush for being a fighter pilot, he is willing to let working in daycare or cleaning the unicorn stables at the Obama White House substitute for combat experience and military training so long as the duty is coerced.

The real issue here is to complete what communist philosopher Antonio Gramsci called “the long march through the institutions.” So long as the military is a volunteer organization it will attract a young man and woman who has a certain set of values: even though those values are placed under direct assault by the recognition of sexual perversion as a legitimate lifestyle. (snip)

Military service doesn’t guarantee virtue (JFK) or leadership ability (Carter) or wisdom (John Kerry, John McCain). It is admirable and it does benefit some people but short of a war that would mean the destruction of the nation, it should remain as it has historically been in the United States: a voluntary endeavor by free men.

wbboei December 4, 2013 at 10:26 am
“But Obama never said who those people were
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Perhaps he’s shy because of this situation?
Group gets $1.1 million grant to collect ObamaCare ‘success stories’
Published November 28, 2013
A self-proclaimed non-partisan organization has been given a $1.1 million grant to establish a database of ObamaCare “success stories,” as the Obama administration tries to rehab the law’s image amid the rocky rollout.
Families USA, which describes itself on its website as a non-profit dedicated to “the achievement of high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” received the $1,100,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Oct. 4.
The grant, which was first reported by CapitolCityProject.com, is meant to help Families USA expand the database of “real people” sharing their stories of enrolling in ObamaCare. Families USA solicits such stories on its website, asking Americans to submit their examples of how they are benefiting from the Affordable Care Act to educate others. snip.http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/28/groups-gets-11-million-grant-to-collect-obamacare-success-stories/

Barack Obama is the “Blah-Blah-Blah” president. He talks and talks and talks – but says nothing. The once soaring platitudes that suckered in millions of voters, now fall flat. Those same voters roll their eyes and look away, having heard it all so many times before.

Even while Obama’s support crumbled elsewhere, Californians held tight to their hope for change. Despite the state’s stubbornly high and enduring unemployment rate (still at 8.7%) and emptiness of Obama’s repeat pivots to creating jobs.

But now comes a brand-new statewide Field Poll. Guess what, dude? The Illinois guy is sliding. Bad. Especially among his traditional core supporters, such as independents, youths, women and union members.

In February, 62% of Californians approved of the job performance of the White House’s top golfer. During Obama’s entire presidency his California approval was higher only once, 65% just 60 days into the job, Field reports.

Young Americans are turning against Barack Obama and Obamacare, according to a new survey of millennials, people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are vital to the fortunes of the president and his signature health care law.

The most startling finding of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics: A majority of Americans under age 25–the youngest millennials–would favor throwing Obama out of office.

ObamaCar social justice means that even though you live where it has never ever hailed, you still have to buy hail damage coverage. By doing so, you help make hail damage coverage cheaper for others. And, after all, we’re all in this collective together.

Under ObamaCar you’ll be required to buy auto insurance even if you live in Manhattan and don’t own a car. You’re sometimes a passenger in a car, right? And, you may own a car someday. By paying for ObamaCar Insurance now you’ll help more equitably spread auto insurance costs across the nation.

Disinterested auto insurance companies will help draft the ObamaCar enabling legislation — the Affordable Car Insurance Act (ACIA) — because they’ll think it means more customers for them. And it may — for a time.

The only Congressional leader to exempt staffers from ObamaCare is… handsome Harry Reid–the jack of knaves. First he tells us lets stop the games ALL aboard the good ship lolly pop. No exceptions. Then good old Harry turns around and exempts his own staffers. I think this man has taken leave of his senses. Old age and too much power can do that to an asshole. It has been known to happen with federal judges under the life and good behavior protection.

All of which raises a most interesting question, posed by glenn, and a most intriguing challenge for twinkle toes Obama:

“Shouldn’t Obama prove he can sell his own front man before going out and trying to snow the rest of us … again? He’s got until December 20th to make the sale with Harry Reid, when Obama’s annual Hawaii Christmas vacation will begin. Let’s see what kind of salesman Obama really is. When Obama manages to win the Reid account, then we’ll pay attention to the ObamaCare version of Mad Men.”

A fond salute to our big media beloved and installed presidente. He is an empire of illusion. Here are some one liners by a commenter at Ulsterman that capture the zeitgeist surrounding our grand messiah. Thank you big media. The damage he has done to this country is your doing–100%.

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-The President of Everything was the inspiration for the name “drone.”

-Women voters who voted for the Princess are suddenly finding that they have the same feeling of revulsion they had when their husband announced he was gay.

-The Press Corps is now the Press Corpse, having died of boredom.

-The Whitehouse bunker won’t be finished until they line it completely with mirrors and portraits of the Worst President Ever (BHO) and begin building the pyramid – and Rahm will be forced to make bricks without straw.

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Finally, after two months of horror, President Obama heard cheering when he discussed ObamaCare.

OK, so the cheering came from members of his own staff, who were assembled in the White House briefing room to hear him speak Tuesday afternoon. But listen, the guy has had a hard time since Oct. 1; he can use all the cheering he can get.

The speech was promoted as part of an aggressive new effort to promote ObamaCare following the repairs (far from completed) made to the HealthCare.gov Web site. If that was the intent, it was a colossal failure.

The president said nothing — and I mean literally nothing — he hasn’t said before in defense of ObamaCare. He delivered the same tribute to its glories and wonders I’ve heard him give so many times now, I could’ve written it myself.

No, in truth, yesterday wasn’t about ObamaCare. It was about Obama. It was about bucking up the boss. It was about showing him some love.

The fact that Obama was in on the tribute to himself only adds to the poignancy. You have to be a little desperate to agree to organize and promote a support rally to boost your own spirits.

He got the applause he wanted. He got the love he needed. He got MSNBC talk personalities to speak admiringly of him. So by those standards, if by no other, the speech was a roaring success.

It may even have kicked off a new lifestyle trend: Are you a boss? Things getting you down? Have a pep rally in the staff cafeteria and make sure your staff gives you a big round of applause!

The event began with some of those ordinary folk who can claim to have benefited from ObamaCare already. One of them was a young woman named Monica (no, not that Monica) who has Crohn’s disease. She said that ObamaCare had had such a positive effect on her life, since she can stay on her parents’ insurance until she’s 26, that she can now pursue photography as a career.

Well, that was worth the whole $1.8 trillion ObamaCare price tag right there.

Then the president got up. As he has since the Web-site catastrophe began, he acknowledged the problems up front before moving on quickly to the great achievements of ObamaCare, including 500,000 newly insured people.

He did not mention the 1 million-plus in California whose policies have been cancelled, of course, but why should he? This was his day, his chance to shine, his turn to tell the story — it would be ungenerous to cavil.

“My main message today is we’re not going back,” Obama said. “We’re not repealing it as long as I’m president.” This is the sentence that caused the standing ovation. If the president has been reduced to defiant statements that he’s not going to do something no one expects him to do, and that no one expects will happen, he’s in worse shape than even Ted Cruz hopes.

Now that he’s had his little pep rally, President Obama would be well-advised to go under the radar again for a while. According to Gallup, the more facts people know about ObamaCare, the less likely they are to support it.

It would appear that it’s better for the president if people live in blissful ignorance rather than horrified awareness.